274 DESIGNS ON HOPI POTTERY [BTH. ANN. 33 
The natural conservatism in religious rites of all kinds has brought 
it about that many of the above-mentioned designs, although aban- 
doned in secular life of the Hopi, still persist in paraphernalia used 
in ceremonies. It is therefore pertinent to discuss some of these 
religious symbols with an idea of discovering whether they are asso- 
ciated with certain clans or ruins, and if so what light they shed on 
prehistoric migrations. In other words, here the ethnologists can 
afford us much information bearing on the significance of prehistoric 
symbols, 
One great difficulty in interpreting the prehistoric pictures of 
supernaturals depicted on ancient pottery by a comparison of the 
religious paraphernalia of the modern Hopi is a complex nomen- 
clature of supernatural beings that has been brought about by the 
perpetuation or survival of different clan names for the same being 
even after union of those clans. Thus we find the same Sky god with 
many others all practically aliases of one common conception. To 
complicate the matter still more, different attributal names are also 
sometimes used: The names Alosaka, Muyinwu, and Talatumsi are 
practically different designations of the same supernatural, while 
Tunwup, Ho, and Shalako appear to designate the same Sky-god 
personage. Cultus heroines, as the Marau mana, Shalako mana, 
Palahiko mana, and others, according as we follow one or another 
of the dialects, Keres or Tewa, are used interchangeably. This 
diversity in nomenclature has introduced a complexity in the Hopi 
mythology which is apparent rather than real in the Hopi Pantheon, 
as their many names would imply.t' The great nature gods of sky 
and earth, male and female, lightning and germination, no doubt 
arose as simple transfer of a germinative idea applied to cosmic 
phenomena and organic nature. The earliest creation myths were 
drawn largely from analogies of human and animal birth. The 
innumerable lesser or clan gods are naturally regarded as offspring 
of sky and earth, and man himself is born from Mother Earth. He 
was not specially created by a Great Spirit, which was foreign to 
Indians unmodified by white influences. 
As the number of bird designs on Sikyatki pottery far outnumber 
representations of other animals it is natural to interpret them by 
modern bird symbols or by modern personations of birds, many 
examples of which are known to the ethnological student of the Hopi. 
Tn one of a series of dances at Powamt, which occurs in February, 
men and boys personate the eagle, red hawk, humming bird, owl, 
cock, hen, mocking bird, quail, hawk, and other birds, each appro- 
priately dressed, imitating cries, and wearing an appropriate mask 
1A unification of names of these gods would have resulted when the languages of the 
many different clans had been fused in religions, as the language was in secular usage. 
The survival of component names of Hopi gods is paralleled in the many ancient re- 
ligions. 
